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POLITICO 44

Next week’s J Street conference can already be deemed a success. That is because it has caused the organizations and individuals who constitute the old pro-Israel lobby to drop any pretense of tolerating deviation from the status quo.

For instance, StandWithUs, which was created to smear J Street, has been urging senators and House members to take their names off the J Street “host committee.” That is a listing of some 150 members of Congress who are publicly welcoming J Street’s upcoming conference in Washington.

A host committee, of course, is pretty insignificant. The legislators did not pledge to attend the event. They simply endorsed the idea of the event.

Nonetheless, that is too much for the hard-liners who are doing everything they can to ensure that the J Street conference fails.

But here is the ironic part.

In recent years, several books and articles have been published that argue that the pro-Israel lobby effectively stifles debate on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the halls of Congress, in academia and even in the media.

Every time that claim is made, the lobby goes ballistic, with virtually every organization identified with the lobby arguing that such charges amount to libel. The organizations claim they would never try to stifle dissent.

But now those tactics are being employed against J Street by the very people who insist that no such tactics have ever been used.

J Street itself does not accept the thesis that there is a concerted effort by the lobby to stifle dissent. But its own experience seems to demonstrate that there is.

Clearly, the stalwarts of the lobby don’t want J Street’s message to get out. But what is the message they’re so afraid of?

It is that negotiation, not war, is best for Israel. Even worse in the lobby’s eyes, J Street is telling President Barack Obama and Congress that being pro-Israel requires supporting diplomacy, not thwarting it.

And that has caused the pro-Israel right to declare war.

The latest tactic is to examine the personal history of everyone associated with the J Street conference in an effort to discover that a participant is not 100 percent kosher on Israel (for instance, that he or she supported Yitzhak Rabin’s Oslo peace process).

The lobby even enlisted a psychiatrist, Kenneth Levin of Harvard University, to analyze the psychological motivations of those who support J Street and the two-state solution.

In an interview in the right-wing blog FrontPageMag.com, Levin said Jewish dissenters from the Israeli government’s positions are “ignoring or rationalizing the genocidal agenda of Israel’s enemies and even, in many instances, siding with those enemies.” And why? To separate themselves from a community under siege.

“Inevitably, some elements of the besieged group will embrace the indictments of the besiegers, however bigoted or absurd. They will do so in the hope of thereby extricating themselves from the wider group’s dire predicament,” Levin said.

J Street’s critics claim that the organization’s supporters want all the Jews dead or, to be precise, all the Jews except themselves. The non-Jews who support J Street are just anti-Israel (which is the same as being anti-Semitic).

The bottom line is that the attacks on J Street are becoming increasingly strident and ridiculous. And that is because J Street’s critics are terrified.

What are the pro-Israel lobby’s stalwarts so afraid of? They’re afraid that J Street’s success will strengthen Obama in his determination to achieve “two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security.” And then what would the right-wingers of the lobby do?

MJ Rosenberg is a senior fellow at Media Matters Action Network. He previously served as director of policy analysis for Israel Policy Forum. He was also the editor of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s Near East Report.

The right is not afraid of JStreet. It has been a long acknowledged fact that there will be Palestinian State. What the true pro-israel lobby does not like are those who purport to be Israel's friends who tell Israelis that they have to let their chlldren die so the American left can push President Obama's view of the world. Mr. Rosenberg doesn't like that a person's past is brought up in conversation, however, where you have been and who your friends are, are indicative of what you think and what kind of person you have become.That is why it is important who funds and runs JStreet. People have a right to know that an organization's monetary existence is beholdent to Soros (extreme left money-man, one-world adherent, whose animus toward Israel is well known), anti-Israel Islamic groups, other leftist leaning organizations and that it is run by Ben-Ami, who was the coordinator of an anti-Israel college campaign orchestrated through Fenton Communications.

Furthermore, the fact that the author of this article cites the anti-semetic polemics recently written about AIPAC and AIPAC's nerve to fight back as proof of the polemic's correct assumptions, is a poor attempt by Mr. Rosenberg to defend his misguided and detrimental postion towards Israel's survival. Furthermore, I find it very "1984" to cite the views of anti-semities as correct in order to prove you have the Jew's best interst at heart.

Heaven forbid that those who believe that Israel should have the last say about its security needs or that it has a right to determine its own future don't go quietly and just give into the ramblings of the left. It is not that the right is scared of JStreet, But AIPAC has the right to show JStreet for what it is: An attempt by the left to undermine Israel in accordance with Obama's view of the Middle East. The problem isn't AIPAC, the problem is that JStreet just like the rest of the self-righteous poltiical left just can't wrap their brains around the fact that anyone could dare to question them, because they are so morally and ethically superior to everyone else. How dare AIPAC actually fight a political agenda it disagrees with. How dare the rest of us not salute JStreet as a group of apostles sent from heaven to lead us into Obama land. Maybe its because we know what the real world looks like and when someone talks about destroying you and your children we don't think they misunderstand who we are, that we just need to talk to them nicely to get them to change their minds; we know they mean what they say. We know that there is real evil in this world. We know that is not a matter of diplomacy, its a matter of survival.

J Street is simply the home base for the plethora of Jew-hating-Jews who infest academia and self-proclaimed research institutions, from Noam Chomsky, Norman Finklestein, George Soros, Howard Zinn, and the rest of the oven-warmer Uncle Toms who dance to the tune of their Marxist and Muslim heroes.

AIPAC is afraid of a free and open debate of U.S. policy in the Middle East, which to date has been dominated by AIPAC. AIPAC is not the only national Jewish organization to target J Street, although they stand the most to lose as “the” Israel lobby. However, we should not be surprised by this AIPAC smear campaign against J Street.

In an August 1990 internal AIPAC memo made public by Slabodkin, the head of AIPAC’s opposition research boasted: "There is no question that we exert a policy impact, but working behind the scenes and taking care not to leave fingerprints, that impact is not always traceable to us."

It wasn’t so long ago that the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council passed a resolution condemning "McCarthy-like" tactics used by some Jewish organizations. The resolution proposed guidelines for dealing with "the right of dissent" on Israeli policies, and emphad the importance of open and thoughtful exchange in an atmosphere of "mutual tolerance and civility."

AIPAC and its backers in the organized Jewish community should adhere to that standard.

I am shocked that the author has not chosen to publicized the fact that his organization (Media Matters) and J Street are both funded by George Soros. Aren't honest people who write articles like this supposed to show their affiliations when they contribute to bias in the story?

Of course, considering the article is filled with errors and biased opinion this shouldn't be surprising. For example, in the second paragraph the author states StandWithUs was "created to smear J Street" when in fact StandWithUs has existed since 2001, long before J Street existed.

The problem supporters of Israel have with J Street is none of the things the author has stated, but simply that J Street is pushing an agenda that only the extreme fringe within Israel itself adhere to, and the US government should not be pushed by J Street to push such an extreme agenda. Israel has the right to decide what is best for itself, and to determine what that is democratically. Clearly the people of Israel do not agree with the politics of J Street, as evidenced by the thrashing the parties closest the J Street's agenda got in the last election.

J Street does not represent liberal Israel supporters. It represents extreme leftist supposedly pro-Israel people. When you have absolutely nothing positive to say about Israel, you can't be pro-Israel.

JStreet oposes Israeli policies even supported by the most left wing Israeli political parties like Meretz..

It invites anti-Zionists to speak at it's yearly conference like Bernard Avishai who wrote the anti-Zionist book "The Tragedy of Zionism"

It defended the disgusting antisemitic and virulently anti-Israel play Seven Jewish Children.

It takes money from people who represent the enemies of Israel such as:

Genevieve Lynch, Board member of NIAC, the de fact lobby of the Iranian government. Judith Barnett a registered with the U.S. Justice Department as a foreign agent for Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Richard Abdoo who contributes to Israel hater Kieth Ellison's election campaigns. Mary El-Khatib who writes for the virulently anti-Israel Muslim Link . Nancy Dutton: Widow and law partner of Fred Dutton, registered foreign agent for Saudi Arabia for almost 30 years. "Filings with the Justice Department show that he earned millions of dollars from the Saudis. Kathleen Peratis who wrote Washington Post Editorial accusing Israel of violating human rights every time it goes to war.

You can't just say you are pro-Israel you actually have to do something pro Israel.

Helen Corban who loves to compare Israel to the Nazis, thinks Israel is worse than Hamas, praises Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, wouldn't care if Israel ceased to exist as Jewish State, amd wants the United States to withold aid to Israel.

Phillip Weiss who runs an anti-Israel blog and has no qualms about saying he is an anti-Zionist.